Guinness Fruit Cake

A couple of weeks ago I tweeted about soaking dried fruit in Guinness and as promised, here is the recipe. I’ve baked this fruit cake for years after reading about it in an English magazine. (I copied the recipe but didn’t note the source so I can’t give credit where credit is due.)

What I can do is tell you that this fruit cake is tops for texture and flavour. Having tried many such cakes in my time I find some too heavy with fruit and not enough ‘cake’; others have too much dry ‘cake’ and not enough fruit and let’s not even talk about the ones that feature red and green glace ‘cherries’.

I’m a big fan of soaking dried fruit before baking where appropriate. A while back I gave you a recipe for a lovely fruit loaf where the fruit is soaked in Earl Grey tea - another example of how pre-soaking adds dimensions of flavour and moisture to a cake.

Without a doubt, soaking the dried fruit in Guinness not only gives moisture to this brilliant cake but a wonderful depth of flavour too. I think you’ll like it!

Guiness Fruit Cake

Ingredients

• 150g raisins
• 100g sultanas
• 100g stoned prunes
• 100g dried pear or apple or cherry or fig
• 300ml Guiness
• 175g butter
• 200g light brown sugar
• 2T treacle -  found in most big supermarkets and health food stores
• 4 large eggs
• Grated zest of 2 oranges and 2 lemons
• 225g plain flour
• 3/4t baking powder
• 1/2t ground ginger
• 1/2t ground cinnamon
• 1/2t ground allspice
• 1/4t ground nutmeg

Method

1. Chop any fruit (eg: figs) so that all are about the size of the raisins
2. Cover with 250ml of Guinness (save last 50ml) and let soak overnight
3. Preheat oven to 170C
4. Butter a springform tin (22cm approx) or butter and line your favourite cake tin of around the same size
5. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy, then add treacle
6. Add eggs one at a time - let each mix in well before adding the next one
7. Stir in the dried fruit along with the liquid and the zests
8. Sift the flour and spices and then fold into the batter
9. Pour into the tin and bake for 45 minutes
10. Lower the temperature to 150C and bake another 30 minutes or so
11. Cake will be done when ‘firm’ and a skewer comes out clean from the middle
12. Leave the cake in the tin and with the skewer, make quite a few small holes over the top of the cake and pour the rest of the Guinness over the cake.
13. Leave to cool completely resting the tin on a cooling rack to let the air circulate

My Tips

• As long as the weight of the dried fruit comes to the total (450g) I don’t think it really matters what combination you use. My last cake had less raisins and more sultanas. You’ll find a fruit blend that you really like. Often I just try to use up dried fruit that I have on hand.
• Don’t forget to wash the lemons and oranges really well before zesting them
• The original recipe says to wrap the cake when cold and store for 3 days before eating -  apparently the flavour just gets better - I wouldn’t know because we usually finish the cake in first three days!

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